Many Public Problems Can’t Be Solved - But They Can Be Managed

“I smelt a rat,” Patrick Henry said to explain his refusal to attend a convention of the states in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787.   We now call that gathering the Constitutional Convention, but had that name been used then, most of the states would have refused to participate. They didn’t want to create a national government they feared would usurp their power. Indeed, state vs. national power was a defining problem the delegates confronted – and never solved.    

More than two centuries later, that problem remains.  The federal and state governments continue to fight over who controls what on issues as diverse as education, elections and guns.  Those are just a few of the major issues we as a nation can’t seem to solve. If you wonder, for example, why we still fight over what to do about immigration, we have done so since the beginning.  On many other issues as well – abortion, taxes, law enforcement - there is no end to arguments about how to “solve” these problems. Deeply held and often contradictory values and beliefs are at stake.  Many Americans throw up their hands in frustration.  Democracy is failing, they say, but maybe there are some problems democracy can’t ever solve.  Yet that doesn’t mean these problems can’t be managed.

To see why better managing perhaps inherently unsolvable programs is desirable, consider the alternative.  What if the extreme Left got legislation to open our borders to all who wish to enter?  What if the extreme Right could nullify all gun ownership restrictions?  The resulting societal impact and costs - angry backlash, partisan fighting, lawsuits, protests - would not count either “victory” as good for society.

Consultant Barry Johnson, author of Polarity Management, argues that unsolvable problems can in fact be dealt with productively – if we treat them not as problems to solve but as polarities to manage. 

Consider the problem of Americans’ relationship with taxes.  From the perspective of “polarity management,” having taxes and not having taxes are polar opposites. In practice, those polar opposites have historically led to something like this:

·       Taxes are needed to run government so we have them.  But people don’t want to be taxed.

·       When taxes become too burdensome, they create a backlash of anger and distrust of government. 

·       That backlash energizes those who hate taxation.  They demand efforts to rein in an out-of-control government. 

·       If those efforts succeed too well, tax cuts, failure to monitor noncompliance and cuts to tax collection efforts grow.

·       The result of that is that revenue drops.  Government can’t do everything citizens want – and that backlash leads to cutting services.

·       Americans upset that the loss of needed services is unacceptable then demand tax increases – and the cycle will soon start again.

We can see this, of course, in legislation which Democrats passed to increase the IRS budget so they can collect more revenue and in Republican pledges to cut the IRS budget so the agency stops going after taxpayers. 

Viewed from Johnson’s perspective, several conclusions for managing polarities follow from such examples:

·       Significant social issues are polarized.

·       Each pole has pluses and minuses – strengths and downsides.

·       Overuse of the strengths of either pole increases the likelihood of its downsides.

·       When those downsides surface, they lead to a push for the opposite pole.

·       Since both poles have some merit, the goal of polarity management is not to find a winner but to achieve as much of the benefits of each pole while minimizing its downsides.

·       Such management requires creativity and compromise, not all-out partisan warfare aimed at winning.  

There can be no conclusive victory on guns, immigration or any many other contentious issue because each claimed victory plants the seeds of opposition.  The “loser” gets fired up. Roe v. Wade did not end opposition to abortion nor will the Dobbs decision end the fight for reproductive choice.  Viewed from the standpoint of polarity management, the sad outcome of both is that the two sides don’t try to find the “sweet spot” that reduces the need for abortions, protects and supports all babies yet does not deny women control over their health.  If we doubt that such policies are possible, we underestimate our creativity and the potential of democracy.

In the Constitutional Convention, the polarity was managed by creating “federalism” in which both the states and the national government had power – and the ability to restrain and hold each other accountable.  This was not a “solution.”  Polarities don’t have solutions.  But it was a vehicle allowing a country to form and grow. 

Admittedly, there are some issues which can only be resolved by eventual victory, such as abolishing slavery and extending the franchise to women.  Yet we fool ourselves – and consign ourselves to needless issue warfare - when we treat every issue as a problem for which our own solution as the one that must win.

Photo Credit: Peggy Marco @ pixabay.com